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LESSONS of RECOVERY' A REViEW of TItE 1997 COlORAdo Flood DisASTER Introduction I More than a year after flooding killed five Fort Collins residents and caused widespread destruction in Northeast Colorado, remarkable progress has been made in recovering from the disaster, even in hard hit communities like Atwood and Weldona. The total cost of the disaster in terms of financial impacts and economic losses may never be known, though estimates are in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Loss estimates at the Colorado State University campus alone range from $120 to $160 million, This report estimates that overall costs of recovery at the one-year anniversary of the flood exceed $160 million (including insurance costs and funds committed to hazard mitigation measures). The 1997 flood was the first disaster declared in the state under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Amendments of 1988, or the Stafford Act. The federal declaration triggered an array of disaster assistance programs that have supplemented the recovery efforts of local and state government agencies, volunteer organizations and the private sector. Background I Although heavy thunderstorms were prevalent over Eastern Colorado during the last week of July, 1997, nothing compared to the intense rainfall produced by storms from July 28-30 in Larimer, Morgan and Logan Counties. Individual thunderstorms produced more than 10 inches of rain in each of these counties during the three-day period. In Larimer County, a monsoonal flow trapped against the foothills west of Fort Collins produced the heaviest 24-hour precipitation ever recorded in the area (City of Fort Collins, 1998b), In Morgan and Logan Counties, more than half of the annual Aftermath of Spring Creekjlood average rainfall for the areas fell in less than 10- (photo by John Weaver) hour periods. The slow-moving storms resulted in record flood events at certain locations and widespread impacts across the eastern part of the state, especially in Larimer, Morgan and Logan Counties. Five residents of Fort Collins were killed when an unexpected surge of water swamped their mobile home parks while virtually all of the plains communities of Weldona and Atwood were flooded, destroying homes and causing residents to evacuate. The greatest financial loss was experienced by Colorado State University, where floodwaters caused more than $100 million in damage to campus buildings, books, utilities and other resources, Other areas of Larimer, Morgan and Logan Counties also suffered serious flood damages to homes, businesses, schools, roads and crops. Roads and bridges were damaged by floods in 10 additional eastern counties, and they were later added to the federal declaration to help cover the costs of public infrastructure repairs. ColORAdo OffiCE of EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 1